Saturday, April 7, 2018

Islam in Russia Dominated by Conflict between Local and Salafi Versions, Rezvan Says

Paul
Goble

Staunton, April 6 – Islam has spread
by adapting successfully to local cultural traditions, but this has given rise again
and again to conflicts between those local communities and others who seek to
promote a common purity that in fact never existed, Yefim Rezvan, deputy
director of the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography of the Russian Academy
of Sciences.

The promoters of the pure side are
now called Salafis and are generally viewed as the source of extremism and
conflict, but in fact, the Islamicist says, “not all Salafis by definition are jihadists
and not all supporters of Sufi national trends [within Islam] are necessarily
peace-loving” (dfnc.ru/yandeks-novosti/salafitskaya-sinusoida-xxi-vek/).

In an interview published in the
current issue of Novy oborony zakaz,
a publication directed toward the Russian military and defense industry, Rezvan
says that this conflict, present at all times in the history of Islam has been
intensified in recent years as a result of changes in the world, including in
Russia.

The existing economic and political
system does not take into consideration “the financial and economic
possibilities of the Islamic world, and Islamic countries are not represented
in the real ‘elite clubs’ like the Security Council and the G-7,” Rezvan says.
As a result, many Muslims feel insulted and want to develop their own “alternative”
arrangements like ISIS.

Moreover, “after the collapse of the
USSR and the discrediting of communism as an ideology, another alternative to
capitalism disappeared. The latter, because it did not face competition, moved
toward a harsh formation of humanity and of each individual in particular.”
Naturally that generated a countervailing response, including Salafi Islam.

Indeed, Rezvan says, “in the absence
of a countervailing civilizational model, the ideological vacuum is being
filled by ‘the black international,’” a development Russia in the same way as other
countries is both opposing and seeking to exploit against its national
opponents.

Adding power to the rise of Salafism
now, the scholar continues, are demographic changes in the Muslim world like
rising birthrates and falling mortality rates, which puts pressure on
governments to ensure that there are enough jobs and upward mobility to absorb
these populations. In many cases, they have failed to do so.

And the universal spread of the
Internet and social networks “has led to the rise of an unprecedented
technological foundation for self-organization and the propaganda of all
extremist organizations.” The most powerful are those who advocate social
justice, overcoming economic inequality and an end to the exploitation of the global
South by the global North.